


Piano Man

by Arisprite



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker, But still angsty, Cas Finds a Piano, Ficlets, Gen, Post Season 8 at least, happier times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 19:03:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arisprite/pseuds/Arisprite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a piano in the bunker. It was badly out of tune, and the wood was strained with age, and wear, but Castiel could tell it had been a thing of beauty in its day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Piano Man

**Author's Note:**

> So archi and I have been talking about destiel (nothing different there), and then the Piano Man by Billy Joel came on. Then we thought, what a cool thing it would be if Cas learned how to play piano? Then these ficlets came of it. There are four little sections sort of related with time passing in between. Just little doodles, really, while I blow off Camp NaNoWriMo.  
> The first song Cas and the Winchesters play is The Piano Man, by Billy Joel. The second one is Metamorphosis 1 by Philip Glass, and the last, as titled and I'm sure everyone knows is Hey Jude, by the Beatles.

Mo. 1: Nine O'Clock On A Saturday

________________________

There was a piano in the bunker. It was badly out of tune, and the wood was strained with age, and wear, but Castiel could tell it had been a thing of beauty in its day. He had found it in a store room, and with help from Dean and Sam, dragged it out into a more central area, one of the smaller living rooms off the library (not the one that Dean had claimed as the tv room, however). 

“I dunno, man. It sounds terrible.” Dean said, plunking his fingers up a scale, and wincing at the off key notes, and the sticky keys. He wiped his fingers of the dust that still sat on every original ivory key onto his shirt, and sent a look to Castiel. “You think its worth it?”

Castiel also ran his hand along the keyboard, not pressing enough to make a sound. He could imagine the scale, the notes as he touched them.

“Yes,” He said. He wanted to hear them. 

Dean nodded, bunching his mouth to the side. 

“Alright. We’ll call for a tuner. Though, hmm...secret bunker..”

“It’s alright. I’ll do it myself.” Castiel replied. Dean blinked. 

“You know how to tune a piano?” 

A shrug. “I can learn.”

Dean, his eyebrow a little more raised than normal, nodded again. “Okay.” There was a pause, and then Dean glanced up again, met his  
eyes. “Do you play piano, Cas?”

Castiel kept his hand on the wood. The vibrations of the strings from Dean’s playing were still moving through the piece, and Castiel enjoyed the feel of it up his fingers, into the nerves of his arm. 

“No, but...I’d like to learn.”

Dean smiled, wider now than he used to, and put a hand on Castiel’s arm. 

“You’ll be playing Beethoven in no time.”

-

That day, Castiel pulled up everything he could find on tuning a piano from the internet, and Sam even found a book in the library for him. Then, with the pages spread around him like a carpet, Cas opened the top of the piano, and began to fiddle with the insides. Dean found himself passing by the door to the room every once in awhile, checking to see Cas elbows deep in the upright grand, his face taut as the piano wires with concentration. He didn’t dare interrupt him, simply looked on. 

He’s asked Cas if he played piano, and realized that there was so much he didn’t really know about the guy, especially about the time before they met. Really, Cas had been around a millennia, but Dean only knew the bare bones. He resolved to sit Cas down sometime, ask him about his past, the things he’d seen and done. There had to be some stories there. 

Dean made a lunch of egg salad sandwiches and chips, and was just setting it out, when Cas came into the kitchen. His face was his version of beaming (a milder sort of smile, that nonetheless looked wide and bright on him), and Dean turned to meet his grin. 

“You finished it?” 

Cas nodded, and grabbed one of the sandwiches. 

“I think so. It sounds in tune.” He said around a bite. Dean swatted him with the napkin. 

“Humans don’t chew with their mouths full.”

“You do.” Cas replied, and Dean threw him a grin. 

“I’m special.”

Cas smiled wider, and swallowed, taking a chip. 

“Do you want to come hear?”

Dean agreed, and they went into the piano room. Sam trailed in from the library, and leaned on the doorframe as Cas led the way into the room. 

“How’s it sound, Cas?” Sam asked. He was still recovering, still tired easily, but his eyes were bright, for the first time in a while. Cas’ little project had put an excited air in the place. 

“Listen for yourself.” Cas said, and sat at the bench. He played a scale, just simple following the notes up the keyboard, and they sounded good. In key, good timing, lively. Dean smiled, and found himself wanting him to play more, play songs and harmonies like he heard on the records he’d come to love. 

“That sounds great, Castiel.” Sam said.

“Better than great,” Dean finished, clapping his hands a couple times. “We gotta get you some music, now. Show us what you can do.”

Cas looked bashful, running a finger along on the newly shined keys. “There are still a few notes that stick. I don’t know how to fix it, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

“We can download some music right now, if you want.” Sam said, pushing himself upright. “Print it out, you can start learning now.”

“I imagine I’d need a beginner’s manual.” Castiel said. 

“They’ll have those. Seriously, Cas. You’ll do great.” 

________________

Mo. 2: Not Really Sure How It Goes

________________

Dean could hear through the closed door. Cas seemed to have forgotten, as plunky notes, crunchy chords and far too extensive swearing for an ex-angel floated through the woodwork. Impenetrable bunker or not, the interior walls were still built who knew when, and conducted sound pretty well. Cas had spent the past few days holed up in what had been dubbed ‘the piano room’, armed with a pile of beginner and intermediate books. He’d probably be have done okay, except that he seemed to have learned the notes, and then skipped to the later sections. Then he proceeded to get frustrated when it was too hard. 

Dean chuckled when there was a discordant bang that could only be a head pounding onto the keys. Dean shifted the two beers he held, and tapped on the door. 

“What?” Cas’ voice snapped, and Dean eased open the door, trying not to show his amusement. Cas sat slumped on the bench, his hands balled in the sleeves of his sweater. His face was adorably grumpy. 

“Hey, Cas.” Dean said, coming fully in. “How’s it coming?” 

“Don’t tell me you haven’t been listening.” He grumbled, reaching for the beer Dean offered. “It’s terrible.”

Dean popped the cap on his own beer, and leaned back on the door frame. 

“You can’t expect it to come the first time you try. Kids work for years for learn this stuff.” Dean replied, thinking of the kids in grade school, who’d proudly performed _Row Row Row, Your Boat,_ or _Fur Elise_ for their parents in the first row. He’d been so jealous of them for a while.

“I’m not a kid, Dean.” Cas took a sip, and then set down the bottle on the bench beside him. His face twitched, and he lifted his fingers to half claws in the air, frustration in every movement. “I can _hear_ it. I can hear how it’s supposed to sound, and I can read the notes and the song plays in my head. But these fingers-” He broke off, the fingers mentioned clenching around nothing, and then tucking into the sleeve of the sweater again.

Dean shifted. “That’s muscle memory, Cas. You just gotta practice, and it’ll come.”

Cas picked up the beer bottle again, his thumb rubbing around the nape of it. He didn’t drink. 

“It takes so long.” Cas’ eyes dropped to his lap.

“Dude, it’s been like a day since you started. Give it time.”

That did not seem like the words Cas wanted to hear. With a ringing thump, he closed the lid over the keys, and stood, leaving the  
room. At times like these, left standing in an empty room, Dean wondered if Cas was trying to recreate his old zapping whenever his emotions got too much to handle. He let out a sigh, rolling his eyes and following after him. 

Cas was out in the library, leaning on the vacant table, his beer forgotten by his side. His shoulders were tense, and head bowed down, and Dean was beginning to think this upset was a bit disproportionate to not being able to play piano. 

Dean stepped closer. “Okay, Cas. Something else is bothering you.”

Cas turned, his shoulders slumping. 

“Time, Dean. Give it time, you said.”

Dean widened his eyes, nodding. “Yeah, that’s how it goes with these types of things. You gotta practice. I’m not sure what the problem is.”

Cas blew out a breath, agitation turning his face away again, like he was going to leave through the door, or vanish into thin air. Dean grabbed his arm to stop any of the above. 

“No, dude. This is more than just the piano frustrating you. What’s up with you?”

Dean watched the top of Castiel’s messy hair, until he finally lifted his eyes, face pained. 

“Time, Dean.” He said again, his voice lower. “I have so little time.”

A clench of fear made his fingers squeeze in tighter in Cas’ bicep. “What the hell does that mean?” 

He took a deliberate breath, placing his other hand on his chest, over his heart like he was giving the pledge of allegiance. “My heart beat, my breath, they’re just counters on a finite timespan.”

Dean’s eyes widened as he realized what they were talking about. 

“Cause you’re human now, is that it?”

Cas flinched, his hand falling, and nodded. Dean frowned, his mouth open to say...what? That he had plenty of time, that he wasn’t mortal and ticking down to his death just like the rest of them. Cas continued. 

“This body is already middle aged. I have, what? Fifty years left? And that’s if I don’t die in some other way, which seems far more likely given the lifestyle we lead.”

“You can do a lot in a human lifetime, Cas.”

Cas met his gaze, anguished eyes wide, questioning, open in a way he rarely was. 

“How? How do you do it, each day? Knowing this...”

Dean stepped back from Cas, pulling his hand away from his arm, his stomach churning. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. 

“I guess, humans just kinda know they’ve got a time limit. I don’t know when kids learn it, but sometime they just figure it out. It means you’ve got to pick and choose what’s important to you, what you want to spend your time on.”

There was a long silence, and Castiel refused to meet his eyes. Dean didn’t know if he was trying to get a hold of himself, or if he was thinking, deciding, what was important. Dean stepped back again, and felt the distance between them chasm. He half smiled, half frowned, uncomfortable in the way only Cas made him. He rubbed his eyebrow. 

“You know, I used to play guitar. I learned when Sam was at school.” Cas didn’t respond, but Dean continued, finish what he started. “I ditched it six months later. I guess I figured it was too big to lug around while hunting. Thought it was more important at the time, and dropped the guitar to make room for the shotgun.”

Cas finally looked up at him, his face blank, frustratingly unreadable, like it so often was. In their times of easy camaraderie, he forgot that Cas had this face. Dean bit his lip, swallowing. 

“Tell you what,” Dean turned, leaned his hip against the table, facing sidewise to Cas, “Think about the piano, decide if it’s what you want to do. Then, if it is, I’ll get a guitar and you work on piano, and we can do a concert thing for Sam sometime.”

Cas, still looking downwards, worked his mouth for a second, then he met his eyes, really met them. Dean felt a blossom of relief. 

“I’d like that,” Cas said, quietly. 

_______________________

Mo. 3: In The Mood For A Melody

_______________________

 

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Dean groaned, sitting beside Cas, backwards on the side of the piano bench. He clutched his new/used guitar, feeling the old way his fingers fell over the strings. Cas leaned back, creaking the bench a bit, making sure his pages were spread out on the piano stand to his satisfaction. 

“You did agree to this, Dean.” He said, cutting Dean a glance. Dean sighed, and nodded. 

“Yeah, I know. But why does Sam get the harmonica?” 

Sam, on a chair on the other side of Cas, grinned and blew a trilling blast through _Dean’s_ harmonica.

“Cause you’ve been practicing the guitar part.” Sam said, shaking his hair from his eyes. “Relax, it’s not like we’re performing for anyone.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean grumbled. “You better disinfect that when you’re done.”

He checked the tuning pegs, plucking a few notes. He didn’t know what the problem was. It was just the three of them there, the way he liked it best, to be honest, and Cas had the hard part anyway. He should be the one nervous here, but his fingers were at the ready. 

Cas straightened up behind his shoulder. 

“Ready?”

Dean leaned across the guitar, and adjusted the sheet showing his chords on the stand in front of him. Then he rest his fingers across the frets. 

“Yup,” Dean said. 

“I’m good.” Sam followed. 

There was a pause, and then Billy Joel’s familiar notes sounded out from under Cas’ agile fingers. 

___________________

Mo. 4: Better Than Drinking Alone

___________________

The piano room was technically far enough from the residential part of the bunker that Cas playing in the middle of the night should  
not wake anyone. 

Technically. But Dean had always been a little too tuned in to the noises of his family to sleep through the stumbling steps from the bedroom next door, and then the soft melancholy notes that barely echoed to where Dean lay. He opened his eyes, staring through the darkness, knowing that if Cas was up playing in the ass crack of night meant it had been a bad one.

Dean sighed to himself, debating for second or two if he should get up, if Cas even wanted company. Then he threw back the covers, and rolled to his feet. 

Cas didn’t look up from his playing when Dean shuffled in, and flopped onto the low couch across the small room from the piano. It wasn’t one of the new couches Dean had indulged in, and the sixty plus year old springs bit into his back until he wiggled into a better position. 

Whatever Cas was playing sounded vaguely movie-y, with a delicate right hand, punctuated rhythmically with strong chords. He wondered what it was, but doubted he’d recognize it if he asked. There was a growing stack of books and print outs on top of the piano, and Dean rarely knew the names on the covers. 

Dean lay there, his dead guy robe warm around him, content to listen until Cas finished. He tapped his thumb against his stomach as the music finished, then Dean eased himself upright. 

Cas’ back was towards him, wrapped in his own dead guy robe. He was stiff and straight, like he was holding up his wings again. He didn’t turn around, but his fingers rapped against the edge of the keys, restless. 

Soft in the silence, Dean asked. “Wanna talk about it?” Whatever Cas had seen, or remembered or dreamt about must have been hard, because he stiffened further, his fingers dropping to his lap. He shook his head, still not turning. 

“No, thank you, Dean.” He said, and his voice was rough and sort of thick. Damn, it really must have been a doozy. But, Cas didn’t come here to talk. He came to play. 

“Okay,” Dean said, and sat back again. Cas started playing again, and this time Dean recognized the beginning. He shifted, and started humming softly along. 

_Hey Jude..._


End file.
